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They will plunder your wealth and pillage your merchandise. They will demolish your walls, tear down your beautiful homes, and throw your stones and timber and soil into the water.
Ezekiel 26:12 · Berean Standard Bible
Parallel translations
  • WEB They shall make a plunder of your riches, and make a prey of your merchandise; and they shall break down your walls, and destroy your pleasant houses; and they shall lay your stones and your timber and your dust in the middle of the waters.
  • KJV And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water.
  • NKJV They will plunder your riches and pillage your merchandise; they will break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses; they will lay your stones, your timber, and your soil in the midst of the water.
  • NASB Also they will take your riches as spoils and plunder your merchandise, tear down your walls and destroy your delightful houses, and throw your stones, your timbers, and your debris into the water.
  • NLT “They will plunder all your riches and merchandise and break down your walls. They will destroy your lovely homes and dump your stones and timbers and even your dust into the sea.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Quick answer

Tyre's riches and merchandise are plundered, her walls and fine houses destroyed, and her rubble cast into the sea. It shows wealth offering no protection against God's judgment.

Overview

The casting of stones, timber, and dust 'in the middle of the waters' is a remarkable detail later associated with the destruction of Tyre's mainland ruins. The plundering of her commerce strikes at the heart of her identity as a trading power. The verse warns that earthly treasure, however vast, cannot ransom a people from the Lord's hand.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 18

  • Isa 23:8Who planned this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose traders are princes, whose merchants are renowned on the earth?
  • Zech 9:3–4Tyre has built herself a fortress; she has heaped up silver like dust, and gold like the dirt of the streets.
  • 2 Chr 32:27Hezekiah had very great riches and honor, and he made treasuries for his silver, gold, precious stones, spices, shields, and all kinds of valuable articles.
  • Amos 5:11Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.
  • Hos 13:15Although he flourishes among his brothers, an east wind will come—a wind from the LORD rising up from the desert. His fountain will fail, and his spring will run dry. The wind will plunder his treasury of every precious article.
  • 2 Chr 36:10In the spring, King Nebuchadnezzar summoned Jehoiachin and brought him to Babylon, along with the articles of value from the house of the LORD. And he made Jehoiachin’s relative Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.
  • Ezek 28:8They will bring you down to the Pit, and you will die a violent death in the heart of the seas.
  • Isa 23:11The LORD has stretched out His hand over the sea; He has made kingdoms tremble. He has given a command that the strongholds of Canaan be destroyed.
  • Isa 32:12Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vines,
  • Zech 7:14But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known, and the land was left desolate behind them so that no one could come or go. Thus they turned the pleasant land into a desolation.”
  • Jer 25:34Wail, you shepherds, and cry out; roll in the dust, you leaders of the flock. For the days of your slaughter have come; you will fall and be shattered like fine pottery.
  • Dan 11:8He will take even their gods captive to Egypt, with their metal images and their precious vessels of silver and gold. For some years he will stay away from the king of the North,
  • Nah 2:9“Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold!” There is no end to the treasure, an abundance of every precious thing.
  • Rev 18:11–13And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, because there is no one left to buy their cargo—
  • Isa 23:17–18And at the end of seventy years, the LORD will restore Tyre. Then she will return to hire as a prostitute and sell herself to all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.
  • Ezek 27:3–36Tell Tyre, who dwells at the gateway to the sea, merchant of the peoples on many coasts, that this is what the Lord GOD says: You have said, O Tyre, ‘I am perfect in beauty.’
  • Ezek 26:5She will become a place to spread nets in the sea, for I have spoken, declares the Lord GOD. She will become plunder for the nations,
  • Matt 6:19–20Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (1)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Ezekiel videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Ezekiel 26:12YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on EzekielMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

Christ at the center

The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.

How Ezekiel 26:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Original language

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.